Johns Hopkins' new HIV/AIDS degree program to draw plenty of interest from prospective students

Assistant Professor Jason Farley says one reason he's confident that the new HIV/AIDS degree program at the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing will draw plenty of interest from prospective students is that so many of the current students and alumni he's met over the years arrive on campus with a strong interest in HIV.

"I've met students who have been Peace Corps volunteers in sub-Saharan Africa, or they've been working in harm-reduction programs with persons living with HIV in the District of Columbia," he says. "I could go on and on."

A current student, Willa Cochran, is a case in point. A former Peace Corps volunteer in the West African nation of Guinea, she worked before coming to Hopkins as a case manager for a New York City organization that supports HIV-infected immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean.

That experience is what sparked her interest in "social remittances," the notion that many immigrants send much more back to their home countries than the wire transfers of cash. They send knowledge unavailable in developing nations. It's a concept that's often talked about in areas like financial literacy and educational achievement, but Cochran believes it has potential in healthcare as well.

"We'd be working with these women, and, completely unprompted, they'd report conversations they were having about HIV with family members back home," Cochran says. "Some of them were sending condoms. Or they were talking about the importance of getting tested before marriage."

At Hopkins Nursing, Cochran earned her bachelor's degree, and she's now in the HIV Primary Care Certificate program as she works toward becoming a nurse practitioner. Along the way, she won a Provost's Undergraduate Research Award for taking her preliminary notions about social remittances and turning them into a successful proof-of-concept study. Over three days back in New York, she interviewed 28 immigrant women from 16 African nations and found that they were indeed relaying information and advice about HIV and AIDS to family members and friends back home.

"They're uniquely positioned to do so, too," Cochran says. "These are women who have gained a lot of knowledge in migrating here. They've also gained social power and prestige, so they have the ability to deliver messages in particularly powerful ways."

Cochran, who hopes to one day work in a primary care setting that serves both HIV patients and immigrants, thinks this notion of "social remittances" deserves more attention from researchers and practitioners alike. "When you're a nurse and you're talking with an immigrant patient, the audience you're speaking to could potentially include a sister back home, a whole family, friends—and through that, an entire village," she says.